BBC News with David Austin

The Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi is battling to keep control of western Libya including the capital Tripoli. Residents have said they are too frightened to

venture

out

in case

Colonel Gaddafi's forces shoot them

on sight

. The International Federation for Human Rights says at least 700 people have died in Libya since the start of the uprising. In the east, the opposition has

consolidate

d its hold and controls the main city Benghazi. A warplane was reported to have crashed near the city after the crew

bailed out

. They said they'd been ordered to bomb Benghazi but refused. Details have also emerged of how unarmed Libyans took on and defeated special forces at an eastern airbase. Jon Leyne has visited the scene and told us what happened.

After the protests started and the government lost control of a lot of area, they tried to bring in

reinforcement

s, special forces, elite forces and also what are described as these foreign mercenaries, mostly from other parts of Africa. Now when local people heard about that, they called on people around the airbase to try and prevent this because people were

literally

being flown into the airbase then bussed down to these towns to attack the protesters. And local people, local young people, initially completely unarmed except sticks and stones, went and surrounded that airbase and took on those special forces, and then eventually got some kind of weapons from army bases and looted army bases, and they took on those special forces and they have defeated them.